Bizspace Spotlight

T.D. Jakes is a man on the move, a man who is hungry for life. He says it's because he was just 16 when his father died.

“My destiny was shaped at my father’s gravesite,” Jakes said passionately as he leaned forward in his chair while talking with me a few weeks ago at the popular Washington, D.C., southern-food bistro, Georgia Brown's.

“I learned to maximize every moment, and I understood that day that life is short," he added. "My father was a young man when he died. He was just starting to live. And then he was gone. It had a profound impact on me as a teenager looking forward to my own life and ultimately my own mortality."

Jakes, 56, has his hands in everything. He is an entrepreneur, movie producer (2014 box-office hit "Heaven is for Real"), author, mega-church pastor, teacher, professor, creator, screenplay writer and philanthropist. He is a man on the move. He calls it, “the fierce urgency of now learned at the grave.”

Jakes' most recent book, "Instinct: The Power to Unleash Your Inborn Drive," was released last month and is his first No. 1 New York Times best-seller.

What follows is a candid and inspirational roadmap based on Jakes' own life and experiences that I think calls women and men alike to follow our own inner instinct — the instinct that takes us down roads and paths yet untraveled.

Jakes is indeed a man of faith (of the cloth), but he is also a man of deep and abiding faith in his fellow man’s ability to do and achieve the impossible, and to rise from the lowest of depths to the highest of heights.

I asked Jakes a series of questions to help us better understand his benign obsession with following our instincts and gifts even when the rest of the world tells us to walk another more acceptable and conformed way.

Nelson: You struggled with poverty in your early years. How did you keep going, what drove you, what did your instinct tell you about what you were destined to do?

Jakes: Yes, it’s true, but here is the thing: I went through it but I never owned it. That is so important for people, particularly here in this country.

Life offers us many roads. You have to see every hardship as a stepping stone to something better. How we respond to what life throws at us is instinctive. We all have an instinctive way we respond to challenges. Some respond with courage, some with fear, some with resilience, others back up and down, and some jump right in and fight their way out. There is no right or wrong way. The goal is to take what is instinctive for you and use it to get beyond life’s tests and get to your destiny.

My response to hard times is that they build us, not break us. My life's work and my success are a direct result of my instinct.

It is important also that we surround ourselves with people who share our work ethic and values but have different gifts and abilities than us. You need people with different gifts to complete you. One is a builder and one is a banker. Attract people who are gifted at maintaining what you build, people who accentuate your gifts and make you better.

Let's break instinct down. What is it and why do we need to follow it?

To tap into your instinct you must first understand who you are wired to be (e.g., your purpose) and then get that in alignment with your environment. If you follow your purpose in life, you will get the right outcomes.

Instinct is your response to the environment you find yourself in. Instincts are the product of what we have (intelligence) and what we want to have (a college degree). So when you apply yourself to your studies through your intellect, you will ultimately attain the college degree you desire. Make sense?

I knew that I had something to say all of my life — I knew it. Yet, I was incredibly afraid and fearful. Shy, even. But I had the tenacity to follow my instinct to raise my voice, and I used my instinct to be heard to get past my fear.

My book, Instinct, was birthed on a safari in Africa. My guide was a brilliant man who could not find the elephants. The Zulu who was with us, who had no formal education, patiently led us to them. That day I learned that intellect can only take us so far, that if we want to achieve our greatest heights, our instinct must meet our intellect and successfully guide us to purpose.

Watching the elephants, tigers and giraffes roam about freely gave me understanding of what moved me all of my life: My instinct to be free. Not caged. Not boxed in. But to do all that I do freely, creatively, and with purpose to help others achieve the same level of freedom and success.

We need to harness the power of our instincts so that we can be who we were created to be.

How do we know what voices in our soul to follow and which ones not to?

There is no voice that tells us to do or not do something. It is our inclination. It is our proclivity. It is our instinct that directs us to go one way or another. Learn to trust your instincts. Go against the grain. Take risks. It’s what makes life worth living.

What does it mean to identify one’s individuality?

We are so busy trying to fit in to what is socially accepted that we miss our individualism versus our exceptionalism. The box of who others say you are can destroy your gifts.

We all need a Rosa Parks moment where we stand up and say "enough," where we find the courage not to run with the pack. We are not all meant to blend in and go with the flow. Some of you are born truly unique. Being true to your core and what you believe in is how you become an individual.

Let's talk about how people who have been victimized in life don't have to become victims, how they can use instinct to get beyond the hurt.

I like to say, “One beggar tells another beggar where he found the bread.” Our job is to inspire others who are where we have been. That is the power of sharing our story if we dare tell it. It's the power of the story. We share to free another.

My point: Everybody is broken. I have learned that after 38 years in ministry and business. Instinct is what drives us to overcome a limp leg, an emotional wound, the seemingly insurmountable handicap, the dysfunctional family or whatever it is. You don’t have to remain a victim just because you were wrongly victimized.

Finally, do we live in a world that suppresses instinct? And if so, how do we get it back?

Yes we do. Most of us are walking around in solitary confinement, or we are locked in a cage of our own making. We suppress our innate instincts and we rely instead on too much data and intellect (like the guide looking for elephants on my African safari) to make important decisions.

Sometimes you need to go with your gut. Life is a series of experiences of birthing opportunities and possibilities. We are constantly coming out of life’s trials and our cages.

Our biggest challenge now is that there is a lack of true human connection. We have walked away from one another as people interested in each other’s journey. We don't want to work at our relationships anymore — we don't have to do the work — so we just do the cut off.

I want to encourage people to take the risk. Take the leap. Do the work. People are worth it and so are you. When we can get back to truly knowing how to talk to people, love people, and stick with people we intuitively give ourselves permission to love ourselves. And when we love and honor self, we can answer to the instinct inside of us and live it out unto our purpose.

Sophia Nelson is an award-winning journalist and author who appears regularly as a cultural and political analyst on many national networks. She is a former White House correspondent for JET Magazine and a women's conference and motivational speaker. Nelson is a leadership and diversity trainer for Fortune 500 companies such as Comcast/NBC Universal, Kimberly-Clark, Land 'O Lakes and more. Her upcoming book is "The Woman Code: 20 Powerful Keys to Unlock Your Life."